Hello everybody, it’s the
time of the week again. Everything is going well apart from the weather. It’s stuck somewhere between spring and
summer but it gets almost winterish here and there... Every time it feels
like we are out of cold days, they usually kick back in the next day. It’s pretty fucked and I really wish it
would stop. Anyways...
Last Monday, I hit the Chair’s for
another jam night. The usual crew, the usual vibes, everything on point. A
friend of mine had her friend visiting and since she turned out to be a former
band singer, she jumped to the mic for a song and pretty much killed that shit.
If I could sing like that, I would totally do it publicly all the fucking
time...
On Wednesday, some of my friends were hanging out at the
Bites and Brews bar in my area and they texted me to join. I was totally in bed
watching a movie, ready to call it a day, but I managed to get my ass out. What I expected to be a one
beer situation ended up being almost an all-nighter, which eventually took us
to Parrot at Donghu Lu. Pretty awesome night.
On Thursday, our Dragon Burn camp organized this movie screening (Portugese film named Captains) at one of the camp affiliate's apartment on Beijing Lu, on Friday, I met yet another friend at Papa’s for some beers and hangout, and on
Saturday, I did a final meet up with my Macedonian guy who just left Shanghai
for couple of months. Nice chilled evenings.
There was one more thing happening on Saturday though. The
fucking Meat Fest. Vegans of Shanghai (which is an actual name of an
organization) organized this event at Haifang Lu (actually right in front of
the Chair Club) and the point was simple – to introduce
local brands producing meat alternatives. I really respect the fact
they kept it local. My issue with veganism, and “healthy
lifestyle” in general is the fucking
capitalist aspect of it which is quite present and always goes against sustainability. When you turn
that shit into a commodity under the market logic, it arguably does almost the
same amount of damage as if you’d do
nothing (I still got some love for corporate vegans too - no worries). For example, celebrating meat alternatives produced in the U.S. that
have to be flown from the other side of the world is kinda insane.
Same shit goes for fuckin McVegan burgers, vegan Ben & Jerry’s, Magnums etc. If you buy shit like
that, you are basically supporting brands that are not only a part of the problem, but
often also the biggest perpetrators of it. They are deep in the animal
killing industry (ergo carbon emissions), the products come with heavy
packaging, and are far from being produced locally. It's okay to buy shit like that (and god knows I'm gonna do vegan Magnum when I'm back in Europe), it's just a bit nuts acting like you are making any difference doing so. The idea that all you have
to do change anything is to switch an aisle in your supermarket while still
supporting the same assholes, still doing fast fashion and still being neck
deep in this system is just crazy.
Anyway, this festival was focused on local production which
I respect (even though Chinese should really tone down on plastic packaging). I
tried some pizza, hot dogs, burgers, yoghurts, cheese, cakes, bacon... Spent
tons of money over there but it was all worth it. And even though I don’t really see myself getting really
into meat alternatives (most vegans actually don’t – even the mock meat companies usually claim
that their target audience are non-vegans), it’s
pretty nice to try some shit like that once in a while. Shout out to everyone
involved in organization of that thing!
So yeah, another week concluded, we got holidays ahead of
us, and you already know what it means. My ass is gonna go Dragon Burn in two
days. So expect some updates on that next week. In the meantime, stay safe,
stay healthy, keep it positive. One!
Highlights:
- I managed to do a game of badminton with one of my favorite Chinese grandpas at the stadium again. Hadn’t done that in a while.
- Papa's beer closed down (probably) for good on Saturday. R.I.P.
- Fake bacon, fake cheese and all those cakes. God damn it!
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